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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY 'Depression glass' now has value Nora and I are not collectors, but we do enjoy watching the PBS program on Monday nights called "Antiques Roadshow." The program moves to a different city each week and is based on a simple premise -- that about one out of every four adults is a collector of something. The only things we have that could possibly qualify as collectibles are half a dozen items that are called "depression glass." The "Antique Roadshow" has a revolving panel of expert appraisers from some of the largest auction houses in the nation. These professionals specialize in particular segments of collecting. One may be an expert on 18th-century Russian art; another may concentrate on pioneer firearms; still another may specialize in authenticating old hand-written letters by famous people of the last few centuries; and still another may concentrate on ceramics and blown glass. The object of the TV show is not to sell anything on the spot, but rather to give collectors fair appraisals. The results of an auction can vary widely depending on who is in the audience, making outcomes difficult to predict. The "Roadshow" gives them both a high and a low estimate of what their collectibles might bring at an auction. On almost every show, at least one item brought in from an attic or cellar somewhere turns out, to the surprise of the owner, to be worth thousands of dollars. A classic case is an old painting that the owner bought for $10. He wanted it just for the frame alone. An expert told the owner that the frame alone was virtually worthless, while the painting was appraised for thousands of dollars. The highest appraisal so far was made last year for a small table that a woman had in her living room for 30 years. It turned out to be a circa 1797 masterpiece, and the appraiser gave it a low worth of $200,000 and a high one of $300,000. Thanks in part to all the publicity, the table was later sold for almost half a million dollars by a New York auction house. But back to our collection of half a dozen pieces of "depression glass." They were called that because in the 1920s, the glassware business had developed a process to make such glass pieces by machine, rather than the laborious method used before. Anyone who lived through the '30s may remember how movie theaters would schedule a certain night of the week as "glass night." The first such promotion I saw was at a Waco, Texas, theater in the late '30s. I'm a little hazy about the details, but I do remember that when the customers came through the outer doors they found men standing behind large cardboard boxes, handing out glass plates, or tumblers or sugar bowls, each made of green glass. Those were tough times, and people really appreciated the "free gift." I think the theater may have jacked up the ordinary 25-cent ticket price by 10 or 15 cents to cover the cost of the glassware and a drawing. While the glassware given away that night was green, it also came in blue, black, crystal, pink, yellow and white. Collectors overlooked the humble glassware for a time after World War II. After all, how could something that had been manufactured for pennies per unit a few decades before turn into something worth collecting? Yet more and more people began to do so. In 1972, a man named Gene Florence wrote a collector's guidebook about the glassware, and what had originally been sold for 5 or 10 cents became worth dollars. Florence's book is just one on "depression glass." The Jackson County Library System has a number of books on collecting glass and other items, thanks to the generosity of the Southern Oregon Antiques and Collectibles Club. A spokesman for the "Antiques Roadshow" says that most people who appear on the show actually keep their collectibles instead of selling them after the appraisal. As for our few glass pieces, we have no plans to have them appraised or to sell them. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA